Hi Reader,
SpaceX finally went public under the ticker symbol SPCX on Nasdaq on Friday, 12th June, with a market valuation of about US$2.1 trillion, well surpassing Musk's target valuation of US$1.75 trillion.
To be make the number sound less abstract, Australia's 2025 GDP was about US$1.84 trillion in nominal terms.
So yes, it was huge.
When someone already has one of the most valuable private companies int he world...and suddenly invites public investors in...
I can't help thinking:
Why now?
You would be forgiven if you thought of SpaceX as purely a rocket company.
In recent years, however, the expansion of Starlink, its statellite internet business, has broadened that definition. I actually bought one for our temporary house during our recent renovation, and the connection was pretty strong and stable.
Indeed, Starlink is the only profitable part of the business.
Looking at its filing, the company has three big engines:
- Space (22% of revenue) - rockets, launches, Starship
- Connectivity (61% of revenue) - Starlink statellite internet
- AI (17% of revenue) - Grok, X and compute infrastructure
Starlink is the strong bit. The Connectivity segment produced US$4.4 billion operating profit in 2025.
But the Space segment lost money, and the AI segment posted a much larger operating loss. In 2025, AI lost about US$6.4 billion from operations.
SpaceX had a US$5B net loss in 2025, a US$4.3B net loss in Q1 2026, and an accumulated deficit of US$41B as of March 31, 2026. It also took out a US$20B loan in March this year.
So why now?
The obvious answer is: SpaceX needs money.
Although SpaceX said it would use IPO proceeds for AI compute infrastructure, launch infrasture an dvehicles, satellite constellation scale, much of investors capital may end up going back into the pockets of the very banks that lent it money.
SpaceX’s own prospectus said it had sufficient working capital for at least the next twelve months, even without counting the IPO proceeds.
So maybe the IPO wasn't necessary in a survival sense. But the public funding is much scalable than the private capital.
Many profitable companies intentionally stay private because the founders fear losing control and taking on unneccesary complexity, think LEGO, IKEA, and Mars (M&M's, Skittles).
In SpaceX's case, it has a dual-class share structure:
- Class A shares get one vote each.
- Class B shares, which are unlisted, get ten votes each.
Musk owns roughly 42% of the company's total equity and holds about 5.5 billion Class B shares, more than 93% of all Class B shares.
This unlisted super-voting stock gives Musk roughly 82-85% of the voting control over the entire company. The prospectus says Musk will be able to control shareholder matters including board elections and business affairs. The charter also makes it very hard to remove Musk from leadership without Class B approval.
Raising enormous capital while preserving control sounds like a sensible plan.
He probably learnt his lesson from the painful saga of X.com/Paypal and Tesla control battle back in the day.
The third reason of IPO is liquidity and currency. Public stock gives employees, early investors, and future deal partners a market price. It also gives SpaceX a liquid acquisition and compensation currency. That is not always stated as bluntly in IPO documents, but it is one of the practical reasons companies list.
When a famous entrepreneur sells you a dream, would you buy it and fund them?
Replay and tell me: would you buy SpaceX after the IPO, or is this too much hype for you?
I haven't bought it, but I'm geniunely curious.
Talk soon,
Irene
